By Henry Garbelman and David Higham.
The purpose of the video is to educate individuals to the risks associated with our children. We hope this initiative will cause more people who don’t own guns to be aware of these risks, and prompt them to ask before they send their children over to play next door.
Sadly, many people do not practice safe gun storage, resulting in far too many tragedies. The statistics are eye-popping.
- 1.7 million children live with unlocked, loaded guns.
- One-half of all handguns are kept loaded and unlocked.
- On average 5,790 children each year are treated in emergency rooms for gun related injuries.
Far too many households live through what must be a parent’s worst nightmare: a child being killed by a playmate or children having to live the rest of their life knowing they killed their friend.
If you think your children are too young where this is not a concern, consider that most (75%) of first and second graders know where their parents’ guns are located. Little boys are the most curious, and most at-risk accounting for 82% of all child firearm deaths.
This problem is also a uniquely American problem. Worldwide, 91% of all children killed by firearms were in the United States.
Fortunately, there are common-sense solutions. It’s estimated that 70 percent of accidental shootings can be prevented by locking up and unloading guns.
You can help. To protect your child, talk to your children’s play parents and encourage all guns to be unloaded and secured. Unload and secure your own guns.
Many problems are unsolvable. Fortunately this one is not. The challenge is clear. One of three homes with kids have guns. And those kids are getting access to the guns, causing five accidental shootings by children each week. We simply need to change the equation by unloading and securely storing the guns.
We need your support to help prevent this most heart-breaking of tragedies. Please contact us for more information. We will put you in touch with one of the many groups working on this problem.
Together we can do better.
